


Bright Eyes

by Ladycat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Dark, M/M, Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It drives Xander mad. He’s a whirlwind, constantly grabbing and wanting and desperately needing and he never knows what it is that he needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> A Yinathon assignment based on the lyric: I want a lover I don't have to love/ I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk/ Where's the kid with the chemicals?/ I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full (Lover I Don’t Have To Love, Bright Eyes)

He doesn’t know how it happens. Doesn’t really care, either. Why should he? He’s fat and happy, coming till his brains leak to tapioca pudding, and his body is riddled with bruises that never once translate to _pain_ in his mind. He goes to work in a daze, his friends a distant dream he can’t bring into focus. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except coming home to where the fuzzy feeling coming into achingly sharp relief.

Spike. Cool skin like vanilla ice cream, riddled with drops of bitter chocolate, so dark it’s nearly black. Muscles that move like water, flowing over and under and in between without ever hitching over the tension that lives in Xander’s, knotting over bone that shivers under the weight. Spike is cock and voracious mouth, grabbing hands that pinch and twist and gently cup and cradle. Spike is the lover the young man always wants: sex and blatant debauchery and never any hint of affection.

It drives Xander mad. He’s a whirlwind, constantly grabbing and wanting and desperately needing and he never knows what it is that he needs.

Just Spike.

“Home early, love.”

Xander ignores the words, because words get in the way. The musical accompaniment Xander only vaguely remembers wafts through his mind, scattering the thoughts he’s cultivated all day. Was it an eighties’ song? Something that makes him think of Willow, flailing red hair and wide eyes that see the world with an innocence Xander doesn’t think he’s ever truly had. He thinks he remembers sitting in the park with the sun beating down, lazy days with sunflower stalks in their mouths, leaking green juicy in sticky trails over their cheeks and chins.

It’s different kind of sticky that stains him now, the memory of that day faded into the haze of everything that came before that no longer matters to him now.

“Aw, come on. Not gonna ignore me the whole time, are you?”

Shortcut, past the sofa straight to the bar that sits in the corner, grasping black spider with hairy legs crawling over every bit of Xander’s skin. The bottle shakes against the rim of the glass as he holds it, and he wonders if he should forgo the glass at all. Just tilt and gulp and enter the world where it’s okay that his tongue seems permanently stilled, rooted to the bottom of his mouth, a conduit only for pleasure and pain and never a consonant in sight.

The whiskey burns to his gullet, erasing the guilt. There’s not much he won’t do to erase the guilt, scouring it black and smooth with alcohol fumes, burning away the residue until only soap-bubble rainbows remain. The worst is when he tries to figure out what it is he’s guilty _for_. He doesn’t know, can’t figure it out, and attempting the diagnosis kills him a little more each day.

The glass is empty before he knows it and he wants more. Always more, golden liquid sticky sweet and cloying, or the little blue pills with smiley faces tattooed in powder. Thinking of them makes his eyes narrow until he can almost see the little sparks that fly, the way Dawn always giggles about before she looks uncomfortable and disappears behind the safety of Buffy’s overprotective aura.

He knows he’s turned into something he can’t stand. He can’t seem to find a reason to care, though.

“Tense, are you? Got little demons that live under here.”

Musician’s fingers, long and sensitive, lacking all calluses but the little bump that brings the memory of clouds of chalk and smell of wood shavings dance along his shoulders, finding the knots that hold Xander still upright. Press once, press twice, then really apply force, sending shock waves through Xander’s system until his knees almost buckle and his mind spins into little circles like a dog chasing its tail.

He almost does it. Almost leans back, ignoring his greater height to rest his weight on a body full of tensile power, tensed to let him do just that. He doesn’t, though. He never does.

“Love to feel how strong you are.”

Xander’s mouth curls at the lie. Lies, lies, and yet more lies are all he hears. All he knows, all his mind seems to produce. So he pours more alcohol to dull the words, rim clattering against teeth that ache from the vibrations and clench from pressure he can’t release.

He’s hard. The incongruous feeling is always there, hiding out in the base of his spine, waiting to spring the burning need out into towering want. Birds make him hard. Trees waving in a playful breeze make him crave so badly that he starts to sweat. Everything makes him hard. Even little kids, doe eyes huge above food-streaked mouths, make him hard, because those eyes he sees are blue and the dirty, stained mouth is one he wants to clean with his tongue.

Everything is Spike. And Spike always makes him hard.

The bottle’s half empty when it thunks back onto the bar. He could turn. He could turn and take and drive until he’s empty for all of thirty seconds.

He doesn’t.

His move is rough, rejecting. It doesn’t work, of course. It never works and he honestly doesn’t know if he wants it to work anymore. He stalks into the bedroom, asshole on the prowl, stripping off jacket and dust-caked boots with the rough grace and familiarity of a drunk on a binge.

Soft footsteps follow him, the pitter patter of a bleached-blond liar. Does he think Xander doesn’t know? Does he honestly believe that Xander can’t see?

The mockery in the air is so thick Xander wants to choke on it. The shark that lurks under silken skin grins at him, flicking his fins in fishy laughter. Sometimes, not often, but when the light is right and the mood is calm, Xander can see the sharpened fin glinting in bright blue eyes, blunt teeth dripping in blood. It’s not affection that keeps Spike there. It’s not the meals, the sheets, the five hundred channels of nothing much at all.

It’s the torment. Spike’s ripping him to shreds a piece at a time. There’s a hunter under each playful tug and willing turn, and each gleeful, blood-soaked strip is the meat that keeps Spike plump and content.

And damn him, but Xander can’t help but be glad about it.

Cool arms settle around his waist, resting over button and buckle. Xander stares at the forearms, lightly covered with soft golden hair. The gold fascinates him. Not brown, not blond, not one, not the other, just there and perfect and goddamn him for being exactly what Xander wants. What he’s always wanted, if he lets himself think too much and goes to the black place where the guilt turns into thoughts he can almost read, almost understand.

From that he always runs screaming. He’s never been one for books, chalkboards written with line upon line of white pearls of dusty knowledge. He holds to that, a badge, an excuse, a mission statement of purpose, held like a shield to protect him from the badness.

He knows it’ll shatter him. He knows, too, that there’s no one there to put his eggness together again.

So he ignores it, distracts himself from the places he can’t go, and gives himself to willing flesh that takes and takes and is never full.

“Here. Let me make you feel better.”

Xander stills when his buckle is undone, willing and wanting and hating and loathing. Lips glance against his belly, along his thighs, waves of cool ocean that leave drying trails of salt in their wake. He could look down now. He could look and see the darkened trails under frosted locks gelled into submission. He could see the long planes of a nose pressed against his skin, indenting it. He could see the sweep of sooty lashes, fluttering wings of smoke creating whirlwinds of air, softer and cooler than even the breath of a vampire.

He doesn’t. Can’t. Because looking brings him back to the room and the thoughts written in white on empty black.

He’s supposed to want this. Crave it, the sex-soaked relationshipless relationship.

Moans, butterfly soft, leak from his throat. Spike’s lips and tongue trace well-worn paths that flare to new life with each touch. This should be old and boring, shouldn’t it? Immunities come with repetition, don’t they? Water wearing down the hardest stone with patient application of a single drop, over and over again. Xander wants that buffer, sheltering him from the fire he can’t ever escape.

His head falls back as the other breaches Spike’s throat, tissue massaged in time with his breath. Suction perfected with the ease of a dial baths the shaft, tongue curling with a gentleness Xander melts to feel. He knows it’s wrong, it’s fake, it’s nothing but a trick to break and bloody him that much more.

So why does he fall for it every time?

Helmeted hair grows messy as he grabs it, disturbing the perfect line of a comb’s teeth. The curl of Spike’s head is bigger than it appears, solidly filling Xander’s palm. He presses, shoving Spike forward abruptly enough to drag one ragged tooth against his skin. The spicy edge of pain makes it good, wakes the ache that never heals inside his belly. It’s like a bellow’s heave, a blacksmith’s need for white-hot fire, eating Xander from the inside out.

“See?” Pulling out of Xander’s hands with ease—he knows who runs this show—Spike runs his lips over the glans, licking up a clear drop balanced on the tip. “Don’t that feel better, now?”

He wants to scream and shout. To rant and rail, feminine hissy fit merged with a man’s desire to smash and rend what hurts him. He wants to cry, when it’s night and dark and it’s only his breathing that he hears. He wants to give in to the salt-rush that blinds him.

“How do you want it tonight, love? Down and dirty? Can play the innocent boy for you, can’t I? Know you like that one. Want me on my hands and knees, open and waiting for you to work out all that anger you have? Oh, I know it, love. Can’t see straight for the rage you feel. Can’t do anything but swirl with it, quicksand tight and whirlpool rough.”

His hands clench, nails digging into a palm rough from work and sun. This is new, different and strange, and Xander needs the rush of blood against his skin before he can look at it.

“Think I can’t smell that? Oh, aren’t you a treasure. Dark and decimated long before I ever had a taste. You can’t even think it, can you? Can’t even understand you never get what you want. Cause you never want what you can have.”

Xander doesn’t blink as his body is shoved, back to the bed, legs splayed and twisted. Spike crawls between, insistent the way he’s never been before. The hunter is there, inch-long teeth gleaming as the shark shows its razored dorsal. Xander wants to feel the malicious glee, wants to comfort himself as the role of lesser.

But all he senses is exasperation and want.

Spike straddles him, cock pressed to cock. They’ve done frottage before, over and again, Xander letting Spike work them both to empty relief. He thinks maybe he’ll do that now, maybe he’ll ignore the changes in favor of losing himself in the familiar push and pull of their bodies together.

“Oh, no. Gone off again, drunk and hurting and shutting me out. Don’t you get it? Think this is all a game to play? Russian roulette appeal?”

He wants to throw his arms over his head, letting muffled darkness shove everything away but the feel of silken smooth skin rubbing against his own. Even just close his eyes, fleeing into the darkness of his skull where only white lines tease and torment him. Questions demand answers and Xander’s never put up his hand, waving for praise like an anxious puppy. He can’t do this. Won’t do this.

The cry burst out of him, sharp and sudden, when Spike moves. There’s a chuckle, a breath of amusement that curls through his stomach like acid, and then there’s nothing but the moment of pure male pleasure when smooth and tight and slick covers his cock. No matter how many times, no matter how many ways, that single moment kills him, lays him out bare and flays him to bloody bone.

For one moment, just one, Xander wonders. Believes. Can’t fight the way white lines form words, legible and insistent in his mind.

“There’s a way, love. Only way I get you, when you’re inside me like this. Think I like it?” Spike’s voice goes rough as he moves, down, solid and firm, before slipping back up. “Do you think this is what I want?”

No. No, he can’t hear this. Can’t believe the broken tremor in Spike’s voice, the one that says innocent and vulnerable, a weak little thing that requires cuddling to survive. Xander moans and tries to run away, his hips snapping up to move deep inside Spike. Not this. Not done with so much skill that for this moment, Xander almost believes.

Deep within, where the man with the chalkboard lives, he knows this is what he lives for. This is what he comes back for, again and again. This single moment when it’s so easy to give in. To believe that the shark only lives in his mind, scales formed with slithering insecurity, and if he can’t only let go for a moment…

“Can’t you feel it, love? Sex isn’t this good if it’s just sex.”

Xander’s hands find the curves of Spike’s ass, the dimple and flex of muscle rubbing the pads of his fingers near raw. He clutches, biting deep, while black-tipped nails do the same to shoulders already painted from the similar nights. He doesn’t set the rhythm. He doesn’t have a rhythm to be set, caught up with the images Spike offers.

He knows it’s a lie. Has to be. Can’t be anything else. He knows it’s a lie.

“Kill me,” Spike pants, the slap of cock against belly punctuating each breath. “Oh, fuck, you _kill_ me. Dying for you every god damn day and you never know the fucking weapons you have.”

_Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Don’t fucking_ talk!

“Stringing me along, you fucking bastard. Keeping me here, caged and rabid for it. Christ, oh, Christ, love.”

The ragged breathing punches to the core of him, shredding muscles and lining until there’s nothing left but belief. The Spike silent but for those glancing, dangerously accurate statements is long gone, lost in the kind of breathless begging Xander doesn’t know how to understand. To trust.

But God, oh _god._

“Wish you would just fucking do it. Stop teasing me with almost and maybes, pinned to your goddamn wall like a trophy. Christ, Xander, don’t you fucking _know?”_

It’s a sob. A wail of longing, brittle and sharp like shattered crystal. Tear tracks make his face glow and the expression—the _look_ —

It hurts.

Xander’s mind goes iridescent, lost in a rainbow of colors, smooth and glowing like gemstones left in the sun. Too hot, too right, too much, and Xander focuses everything he has on _not_ letting the words out of his mouth.

When he’s back from outer space, he has to see what kind of look is on Spike’s face. He doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to see the grin he _knows_ will be there, waiting to demolish that last bit of self Xander’s retained.

Spike’s head is bowed. Soft, vulnerable mouth is blocked by the jut of his nose, flaring as he sucks in breath after breath. The dark tufts of his eyebrows, so shockingly, perfectly black are straight. Not drawn or raised or otherwise offering Xander that single clue he needs. There’s nothing. Just breath. Just…

“It’s not enough.”

The words are full of gravel, rotten from disuses. They do their job, though, lifting the sharp point of Spike’s chin. The emptiness on Spike’s face disturbs him, slays him, and for a single breathless moment, Xander thinks he’s too late.

And then the emptiness smoothes, fills, and _what_ it’s filled with doesn’t matter. All Xander knows is that he put it there.

“Thought that was the point.”

The white lines, words he can’t put breath to even if can read their form, disappear. Erased into nothingness. Blank slate, Locke’s mission, and the spiraling, aching tension inside him settles in place with a _click_ of righteousness.

No. It isn’t enough. It never is. The hungry need is always there, insatiable, unfulfilled. Always craving more. Because without that crave there is no dream. And without the dream…


End file.
